Sting Could Pick Up Former Express Players

February 19, 1987|By John Leptich.

The Sting will play host Saturday night at the Horizon to the Wichita Wings instead of the expansion New York Express, which Tuesday became the 13th team in the 9-year-old Major Indoor Soccer League to fold.

With a season-high advance ticket sale of 7,500, the Sting, which plays in Wichita Friday night, gains a more formidable opponent. The Express was 3-23; Wichita is 14-13.

Sources indicate that while the Express filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, the league will ask the courts to declare the team`s players free agents rather than go through a dispersal draft. It`s a good bet that while players like All-Star defender Chris Whyte and midfielders Michael Collins, Ricky Davis and Njego Pesa will draw attention, the Sting would be interested chiefly in goalkeeper Hubert Birkenmeier, who played in Chicago last season.

The Sting has two goalies, but Scoop Stanisic suffered a left ankle injury in practice Tuesday and probably won`t play this weekend.

Meanwhile, The Tribune has learned that the Express was denied membership into the American Indoor Soccer Association in the summer of 1985.

``They couldn`t get the financial conditions,`` said AISA board chairman Steve Paxos, who also owns the Canton Invaders. ``It was a question of the letter of credit not being posted. Stan Henry (the Express board chairman)

wasn`t involved at the time, but (team president and goalkeeper) Shep Messing was. This is bad for the game. They`ve destroyed the New York market.``

``Membership in our league was granted to New York based upon representations made by Stan Henry, Ralph McNamara and Shep Messing that McNamara`s brokerage firm of MacPeg, Ross, O`Connell and Goldaber, Inc., had entered into a firm commitment to underwrite a common-stock issue of the New York Express in the amount of $5.3 million, which was intended to fund the team for its first three seasons,`` said MISL commissioner Bill Kentling.

``I know we can`t sue them as long as they`re in Chapter 11, but I`ll meet with council this week to determine if grounds exist for the league to pursue litigation as it pertains to fraud and breach of contract. I think real damage has been done to the individual membership. Time will tell how this will affect our national sponsors.

``We told them this summer that the team wasn`t good enough, and we worked with them and talked to them. I suggested strongly that the public sale wasn`t going as well as they said it was.``

While no one in Express management could be reached for comment, defender Andranik Eskandarian said: ``This team should never have been let in. I don`t think the league is going to last long if it`s like this.``

-- The Los Angeles Lazers` losing streak reached 10 games Tuesday night. Gino DiFlorio and Peter Ward each scored two goals to lead the Cleveland Force to a 6-3 victory at Richfield, Ohio. Goalkeeper Chris Vaccaro held Los Angeles scoreless for the first 48:02, but lost his bid for the first shutout in Cleveland`s nine-year history when Stuart Lee scored twice in the fourth quarter and assisted on an Erhardt Kapp goal.